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It was 20 years in the past when Cisco began delivery the Cisco MDS 9000 storage networking switches in quantity to clients, following the preliminary launch a couple of months earlier than. At that point, there have been questions on why Cisco had entered the “storage business”. We didn’t see it fairly that approach. Sure, the lexicon was just a little completely different. For instance, we had been now connecting “hosts, HBAs, and LUNs”, not “servers, NICs, and controllers”. But it was nonetheless networking, and our clients regarded to Cisco for assist.
With that goal in thoughts, Cisco has launched a variety of groundbreaking storage networking improvements that leverage our complete information heart networking arsenal together with Nexus switching and administration applied sciences. These improvements have benefited our clients over these final 20 years. I additionally imagine they’ve superior the storage networking business at giant, which we’re a proud member of. Looking at 5 examples:
- Segmentation: Introduced via digital SANs (VSANs) used to allow larger ranges of safety, virtualization, useful resource utilization and larger stability in SAN materials
- Visibility & Intelligence: Enabled via Cisco Silicon and SAN Analytics and Insights offering deep cloth visibility with scalable self-learning capabilities at microsecond granularity (for each SCSI or FC-NVMe circulate).
- Automation: Leveraging Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller RESTful API to help MDS switch-based NX-API, Python SDK, Ansible modules to simplify cloth deployment and to decrease complexity and prices.
- Congestion Management: Achieved via a Cisco-unique innovation designed to alleviate SAN congestion with no dependency on hosts or storage. This is additional enhanced via Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller Congestion Analysis capabilities that helps proactively determine and assist resolve cloth degree congestion.
- Investment Protection & Extensibility: Ability to leverage the identical modular MDS chassis via every main cloth expertise evolution (e.g., 16G to 64G migration and adoption of NVMe over FC), thereby eliminating the dreaded and extremely disruptive forklift upgrades. This was a design precept for the MDS modular chassis structure from day 1. Extensibility makes adoption simpler and the infrastructure extra sustainable.
Figure: Cisco MDS 9000 portfolio
An Opportunity to Thank Our Customers & Partners
What has not modified within the final 20 years is our dedication to our storage networking clients in supporting their business-critical mission. Our clients are in a few of the most demanding vertical industries together with monetary providers, authorities, media & leisure, manufacturing, and lots of others. These are environments the place the workloads require highest ranges of efficiency, reliability, and uptime and the place Fibre Channel stays the preferred storage networking protocol.
Cisco intends to proceed supporting our current clients and new ones via additional innovation and for years to come back. I’m grateful for our go-to-market and expertise companions, lots of whom have been with us for the reason that starting. These companions are important as storage clients choose to buy their networking options as totally built-in, examined, and validated packages that additionally embody storage methods, software program, peripherals, and repair/help agreements.
Cisco is lucky for our long-standing and enduring storage partnerships which have resulted in lots of buyer successes and compelling joint improvements. I gave our companions a possibility to offer their very own views on how this partnership has advanced over these 20 years:
- “Through our decades-long, valued partnership with Cisco, we’ve served customers’ business-critical data and infrastructure needs,” mentioned Dave Lincoln, Vice President, Networking and Emerging Server Solutions, Dell Technologies. “Cisco has brought innovation to Fibre Channel networking with key MDS features, such as virtual SANs, complementing Dell’s high-end storage systems and helping make customer data secure and always available.”
- “Over the last 20 years, we’ve seen our partnership grow and expand to address the changing needs of our customers and the emerging requirements for new products, solutions, services, and consumption models. Together, we’ve focused on co-creating and delivering offerings that allow our customers to capitalize on their data from the edge through the cloud and to the core. We remain excited and bullish about what’s next for our partnership and the kinds of outcomes we can deliver for our customers and for the world over the next 20 years.” Mark Ablett, President, Digital Infrastructure Business Unit, Hitachi Vantara
- “IBM is proud to be Cisco’s only OEM partner with MDS technology. Our 20-year history of joint development with Cisco for FICON and Fibre Channel technology with MDS has driven value at many IBM zSystems, IBM Storage, and Red Hat OpenShift customers. As our joint customer base grows and we assist our customers with data center modernization, IBM c-type Storage Networking with autonomic path reset capability, based on Cisco MDS technology, will be a key part of the long-term value IBM Storage delivers.” Sam Werner, VP, Product Management, IBM Storage
- “Congratulations to Cisco MDS on their 20th anniversary of delivering state-of-the-art Fibre Channel switches and directors to the industry. Over the past two decades, our longstanding relationship has been defined by a shared commitment to innovation, interoperability, and a track record of delivering cutting-edge solutions to our mutual customers. Marvell® QLogic® 32GFC and 64GFC HBAs with the latest capabilities of congestion mitigation powered by Virtual Lane technology extend the Cisco MDS Virtual Link capability to host and storage systems. This is a testament to the power of our continued collaboration, and I am excited for the future as we continue to achieve success together.” Matt Kim, Vice President of Marketing, Server Connectivity Business Unit, Marvell
- “NetApp is excited to congratulate Cisco on MDS’s 20th anniversary. This milestone marks a long and valued partnership that brings best of class solutions to the SAN market with MDS and FlexPod united in joint innovation.” Phil Brotherton, VP Solutions and Alliances, NetApp
Looking forward
There’s little doubt that digital data, aka information, has by no means been extra essential for our clients. Data has been described as all the pieces from the “new oil” to the “lifeblood” of contemporary enterprises and the digital financial system. Data is a treasure trove of insights that may assist construct smarter merchandise, ship higher customer support, and outpace rivals. Storage space networks join information and functions securely and reliably. That perform is extra important than ever. As lengthy as that’s the case, count on Cisco to proceed innovating within the storage networking house.
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